The Samsons: Two Novels; (Modern Library) by F. Sionil Jose Read Free Book Online Page A

bands in the early morning, and the acacia leaves closing.
    Tony left the window and sat on his cot. The sounds of evening were around him, and he could hear from downstairs his sister’s continued arguing with her husband. Why did they have to be so craven in their needs? If only they could see the hopeless limits of this street and accept this as the fate they must endure and not moan over.
    The door opened and Bert stepped in. “You have to stuff your ears with cotton every time your sister speaks,” he said in an affected, jovial tone. “It’s the heat, and she’s tired. What’s more, there’s the summer vacation and no teaching, therefore no money. You know, the kids are already going to school.” He laughed lightly. “You know what I mean.”
    “I understand, Manong,” Tony said.
    Bert continued, “You shouldn’t think badly of her. As Betty said, when you are poor, you can’t have pride. Only the rich have pride. And we … we are stubborn, that’s all.”
    “I know, I know,” Tony said, but his words were drowned as a freight train thundered by. For an instant, a yellow glare flooded the room and everything in it shook.
    Bert moved to the chair and sat like an impassive Buddha. As the train moved on and its noise died away, he spoke again: “There is no sense troubling you, particularly now that you are about to be married. It’s just that your sister worries so much. You know what I mean?”
    Tony nodded. “I am not angry with her. She will always be Manang Betty.”
    “Yes,” Bert said with another shaky laugh. “And I’ll always be your Manong Bert.”
    Tony nodded again.
    Folding his stubby hands, Bert said, “I hope you have made the proper choice. Still, I always feel that a man should know women. Your sister— I’m not being unfaithful to her, remember this,” he spoke with some hesitation, and Tony felt uncomfortable because his brother-in-law was about to confide in him, and he never liked confidences. They served like heavy fetters that drew the confidant and the confessor cumbersomely together. There was no common ground between him and this fat, bumbling man who knew nothing better than clerking and dreaming of being a lawyer. But there was no way out; he couldn’t run away from this room; he must listen now to the drab tale. “There were three others before Betty came,” a slight, nervous laugh. “I had to make a decision. So here I am.”
    “And here I am,” Tony said without emotion.
    “You are making the right choice,” Bert said, “marrying into that family. But I hope just the same that you got some experience in the United States. Not just book learning and that sort of thing. Experience with women, you know what I mean.”
    “Yes,” Tony said.
    The older man’s eyes gleamed lecherously. “American girls are really hot, aren’t they, Tony?”
    Tony could almost anticipate the next question, and watching his brother-in-law working up to it, watching the smile broadening on his rotund face, Tony felt uneasy and almost angry at having to answer such asinine questions.
    “Everyone says that,” Bert went on, making sounds with his tongue. “Do tell me about them … not now, I know you are tired,but some afternoon when you aren’t too tired and when your sister isn’t around. You know what I mean.”
    Tony smiled. “Yes, when she is not around.” Relief came over him; he didn’t have to talk about American women now. It wasn’t that they were unpleasant to talk about, but talking about them involved deception. He had always found it difficult to talk about sex. He had never, for instance, talked about Emy. And now, even while he faced this inquisitive man, his mind wandered to thoughts of Emy—Emy as he had known her, chiding him, telling him he would be someone to look up to, and when one is respected, said Emy, can one possibly hope for more?
    The sentiment was pedestrian and tritely put, but it had seemed so meaningful—the whole world was in